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Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by Pepe1vo on Monday May 17, 2021 @05:40PM (#27188778)
To be fair, the reason the lab is in that place is precisely because it's close to a place where zoonoses has occurred multiple times. Kind of like how we don't blame lighthouses for shipwrecks.

That being said, from what I've read it appears that a lab escape is a very real possibility. Though I doubt that we'll ever find out

Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by amayne on Monday May 17, 2021 @06:03PM (#27188978)
"Wuhan is ~1000km away from SARS spillover zones. Its human population was even used as a negative (no SARS) control group."

Via @Ayjchan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1394327680456220672?s=20

Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by XorNot on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @12:21AM (#27191227)
This is maybe 12 hours drive, depending on roads and traffic. 1000km is not a huge distance of migration to a major city.
Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by lumost on Monday May 17, 2021 @05:51PM (#27188879)
There doesn't appear to be any relation between the labs founding and zoonoses in the local region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology

Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by AbrahamParangi on Monday May 17, 2021 @06:14PM (#27189067)
I've heard this a number of times now, but is it actually true?

I find that argument hard to corroborate and there are other parsimonious explanations, like WIV was located in Wuhan because Wuhan is a major world city with high quality institutions of higher education.

Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by throwaway316943 on Monday May 17, 2021 @07:24PM (#27189575)
It’s a pretty flimsy lie that incidentally tries to paint Wuhan as an unsophisticated backwater. It smacks of uninformed spin.
Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by sharken on Monday May 17, 2021 @05:52PM (#27188889)
Your point about the lab is great, it's just very hard to dismiss the idea that a lab error was at fault.

But i too think it all too likely that we won't be any wiser about the origins.

Though it would be great if a timeline could be established, i don't remember seeing a good explanation on Covid in Italy being discovered in 2019.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...

Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by prox on Monday May 17, 2021 @06:07PM (#27189011)
I believe that Italy origin story was not credible. Snopes goes with Wuhan as the origin.
Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by temp8964 on Monday May 17, 2021 @10:21PM (#27190648)
If zoonoses was used to pick a lab location, it should be somewhere in the Guangdong Province.
Re:More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins by ekianjo on Monday May 17, 2021 @07:15PM (#27189522)
Nope, it's been debunked. The bats do not come from Wuhan at all.